


Mambo No. 218

by zedpm



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: (but not really), Attempt 218, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Character of Color, F/F, POV Third Person Limited, Present Tense, Romance, Soulmates, on a time crunch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-06 14:58:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20508914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zedpm/pseuds/zedpm
Summary: “This is your soulmate, Tahani,” Michael says.





	Mambo No. 218

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a short exercise to get me writing again. i figured, _hey, attempt #218 fics are basically an elhani rite of passage, right?_ might as well go ahead and write it!
> 
> hope you enjoy!

“This is your soulmate, Tahani,” Michael says, and the woman drapes herself against the door. She has this little pouty smirk that says both _ I’m the worst _ and _ I will absolutely melt your brains at sex, _ and her boobs are _ insane _ and all the stuff about how she’s _ very definitely not supposed to be here _flies out of her brain at once.

_ Whoa-wee mama, _ Eleanor thinks. _ Yes, please. _She needs Tahani to sit on her face, like, yesterday.

Eleanor barely even notices Michael excuse himself. “Come on in, soulmate,” Eleanor says, holding out a hand. “I’m Eleanor. Eleanor Shellstrop.”

Tahani looks at her outstretched hand and then says, “Come now, darling. We’re soulmates, aren’t we?” She proceeds to hug Eleanor and kiss her cheek. “Hm,” she says with cloying sweetness. “This house is certainly _ small, _ isn’t it?”

“I know, right?” Eleanor complains. _ “And _there are forking—Why can’t I say fork?”

“Curse filter,” Tahani says, with more of that manic cheer.

“That’s forking stupid,” Eleanor says. “Anyway. There’s an extremely cursed clown corner.” She gestures over at what she can only assume is a hotspot for demon-summoning rituals. “See?”

“Well, you simply must move in with me, then,” Tahani declares. “Janet!”

* * *

Tahani’s distracted by party-throwing for the rest of the day, so Eleanor just kind of watches her. She’s bossy, and benchy, and she keeps bringing up celebrities she used to be friends with back when she was alive, and she _ never ever _forking shuts up. Eleanor dislikes her, but she tampers it; Tahani certainly seems to have wholeheartedly embraced the whole soulmate thing, and Eleanor’s feeling lucky about the whole face-sitting plan. The day’s sure been working with her so far.

And Tahani is, despite all her rich people-ing, oddly attentive to Eleanor, in a way that annoys her because she finds it so endearing. She keeps checking in, before the party, fluttering over to her like a moth and saying, “Oh, what do you think, dear?” and “Do you need anything, darling?”, the endearments so embarrassingly earnest it makes Eleanor’s skin crawl.

“I’m good,” she says, and says, and says, and watches as food and decorations transform the house. 

Michael shows up about an hour before the party starts, making noise about Best Person awards and _ forking sashes _ and having to _ give a speech. _Eleanor looks down at it all with a kind of hysterical helplessness, which Tahani doesn’t seem to notice.

She’s probably too wrapped up in whatever complex is making her glare over at Eleanor, her genteel veneer barely visible. “Your accomplishments must have been simply _ extraordinary _ on Earth,” she says icily. “Far greater than raising _ billions _ for _ charity, _as I did.”

Eleanor grits her teeth. “Apparently they weren’t good enough to get me out of having to give a speech,” she grinds out. “Or wear a _ forking— _ what _ is _ this, a _ sash? _How do you even—” She holds the offending garment in front of her. “Like, what?”

Tahani softens, just a little. “You put it on like this,” she says, helping Eleanor drape herself appropriately. They end up very close together, and Tahani says, from behind her, “There we are.”

Eleanor turns around, but stays as close. They stand there for a long moment, Tahani’s hands still on her shoulders. Eleanor’s at eye level with Tahani’s very prominent breasts. She wants to forget about all this party shirt and dive in headfirst.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” Eleanor blurts, at the same time Tahani says, “May I kiss you?”

“Yeah,” Eleanor says, “fork, yeah,” and they do that until Janet pops back into the room. Tahani’s confidence is not exaggerated _ at all. _ Maybe she hired somebody to teach her how to kiss? That _ can’t _be natural.

“We’ll have to re-adjust your sash, _ Best Person,” _ Tahani says, and it’s kind of incredible how she _ still _sounds resentful after a kiss like that. Bench. Outrageously sexy bench. “Do you want help with your speech?”

“No,” Eleanor says, and then, “Yeah, okay.”

* * *

Tahani irritates Eleanor, but in a way that makes for great sex. It ends up being pretty easy to maintain her cover, because most of her days consist of following Tahani around on whatever neighborly errand she’s up to, and then boning. A few times she forgets entirely, because Tahani is _ so incredibly domineering _that Eleanor doesn’t really have the time to fork things up. 

It changes about a month into being dead. Tahani’s neediness is exactly the kind of thing that Eleanor always broke up with people over when she was alive, but it’s not like she can dump her soulmate. Their post-coital bickering turns into post-coital chatting and then, eventually, to actual conversation, and Eleanor’s not the kind of person to care about other people’s feelings but she knows that Tahani is, by now, half in love with her, and that she can sense the hole where Eleanor should feel that back. 

It’s not that she _ cares. _ It’s just that she feels bad. She has to do _ something. _

“Wait a second,” the professor guy sputters. “You _ what?” _

* * *

The more she learns about how to be a good person, the harder it gets to lie to Tahani. It gets harder, too, to tune Tahani out, because she starts _ noticing _ things about her. (Things other than her looks, anyway.) Tahani is absolutely _ desperate _ for her love, practically puts up signs that spell out yearning. She’s scorchingly jealous of Chidi, too; she wants all of Eleanor’s time, all of her attention. She’s possessive and obsessive and _ so annoying. _

She’s telling Chidi as much during one of their lessons when he lets out a harsh breath and says, “Oh my _ forking God, _ Eleanor, _ shut up. _You don’t hate Tahani!”

“Yes I do, ash-hole,” Eleanor growls. “She’s the _ worst.” _

“You don’t hate her!” Chidi cries. “You’re in love with her!”

Eleanor falls dead silent, and then she laughs. “As if!” she shoots back. “She’s the. Worst! She constantly wants my time and attention and gives me all these stupid gifts that I have no idea how to repay and she always has to be touching me and making sure I’m comfortable and asking about me and she has the most beautiful hair and when I compliment her at _ all _ she acts like I’m some kind of gift and her legs are like—oh, _ fork, _ I _ am _in love with her.”

Chidi raises an eyebrow. “So what are you still doing here?”

* * *

Eleanor finds Tahani in their bedroom, sulking. “Hey, beautiful,” Eleanor says, and sits down next to her. Tahani opens her mouth to answer and Eleanor kisses her before she can. 

“Hey,” Tahani says, breathless. “What was that for?”

“I love you,” Eleanor says, and Tahani’s eyes go huge. Eleanor feels an entirely nonsexual warmth that’s surprisingly tender. It’s a little frightening. “I’m sorry I didn’t notice before.”

“That’s quite alright,” Tahani manages, looking at her like someone entirely new. “I love you too, you know.”

“Yeah, I know,” Eleanor says. “But why don’t you go ahead and show me anyway?”

* * *

Things are good, after that. 

Except.

Chidi keeps teaching Eleanor (and Jason, because apparently Jianyu is a Filipino Floridian forkboy named _Jason Mendoza), _and Eleanor keeps learning things, like ethics and how to care and Tahani’s heart and Tahani’s body, and a new feeling keeps wracking her, a feeling she’s pretty sure is _guilt. _Tahani might be kind of a bench, but she deserves better than Eleanor, and Eleanor knows that. 

But maybe she also doesn’t? The more late-night conversations they have, the more Eleanor suspects that there’s something else at play. Tahani talks about her sister, about jealousy and insecurity and trying and trying and never being enough and being too much and Eleanor’s gut clenches up with every word. She’s never wanted to love anybody, because she’d thought loving someone meant being a sycophantic stan and losing all subjective perspective. But her shaky love for Tahani isn’t like that. She sees her in her entirety, sees the benchiness as much as the beauty. It’s just that the bad things don’t make Eleanor hate her. Sometimes, they even make her a little fond.

The thing is—there are a whole _ lot _ of bad things, more than Eleanor’s been lead to believe would allow one admittance to the Good Place. Tahani raised money for charity and all, but all of her relationships were one-sided, or empty. They were all about attention, in one way or another—about getting it, about stoking it, about trying to be known without going through the effort of _ knowing. _

It’s not like Eleanor is a paragon of great interpersonal skills, but she already _ knows _she’s not supposed to be here. And Jason definitely doesn’t. So if, maybe, Tahani doesn’t either—at least not according to the bullshirt method Michael’s outlined—then, well, something else is going on. She’s hesitant to say what she suspects, because she and Tahani have been approaching some strange kind of near-happiness. But the suspicion lingers.

Hell. If she’s right, the happiness won’t last very long anyway. She can deal with it then.

* * *

“I’ve been forced to conclude,” Michael says dramatically, “that the problem with the neighborhood… is me.”

There are gasps. Tahani worries her thumb along Eleanor’s knuckle. Eleanor turns to her, kisses her very softly, and whispers, “I love you, you know that, right?”

“Of course,” Tahani says. “What—”

But Eleanor’s already standing. She can see all the drama and the fighting and the torment that will just keep happening, over and over, and she snaps. Could she ever have really loved Tahani the way she wants to, if neither of them is free?

“Michael,” she says. He turns to her, all overblown sincerity. “I’m forced to agree. This is the Bad Place, isn’t it?”

Michael doesn’t even pause. He scrunches up his face in a weirdly petulant scowl. “You are so forking annoying, you know that, Eleanor?”

“Wait, what—”

_ Snap. _


End file.
